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A Green Stand

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. – William Blake

One day, when I was a growing boy, my grandmother asked me a question, “Have you ever looked in Hasti’s eyes?” Hasti was one of the elephants that frequently served in our religious ceremonies and that I had been learning to ride. Hasti’s eyes, like the eyes of all elephants, were tiny – ridiculously small, really, for an animal so huge. “She has no idea how big she is,” Granny said, “because she looks out at the world through such tiny eyes.”

If the world seems hostile and lifeless, and if we seem insignificant in it, it is because, like the elephant, we look at it through such tiny eyes. Through those small eyes, shrunken by the desire for profit and personal gratification, we appear just as insignificant as all the green things – and all the other human beings, animals, fish, birds, and insects – that stand in the way.

When we are absorbed in the pursuit of profit, we live in the narrow world of the bottom line. In that world, our only neighbors are buyers and sellers, our only concerns property, profit, and possessions. Yet all around us is a world teeming with people, animals, organisms, and elements – a deeply interconnected environment that responds to all we do. – Thought for the Day, Eknath Easwaran